Technical solution to eliminate desync in single-player sessions

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Why the client should communicate to the server the damage dealt with an attack? If this is only function of the game-status (character skill, items, auras, etc...) and on the rng (which is the same both on the client and the server) this is redundant.

Did I miss something?

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qwave wrote:

This technique was cutting-edge for awhile, but it has really become antique for action games like PoE.

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Which should be easier to predict: the movement of a monster (which would be the client's job, what it is supposed to predict), or the movement of the player (which would be the server's job, if asked to predict it)? The movement of the monster is something which the client should be able to predict reliably.

Unfortunately, this is often not the case.

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Rhys wrote:

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Yimi wrote:

Why does desync seem so prevalent in Path of Exile while it seems to be much less of an issue in Diablo 3?

Technically off-topic, so I'll reply in spoiler tags...

Spoiler

Diablo 3 has several tricks that alleviate desync (last I checked):
-You can't miss with melee attacks
-You can't move out of the way of melee attacks

These things allow the client to more reliably predict the server calculations, but make combat more shallow.

They also don't really have narrow corridors or doorways to the extent we do, which also helps a lot, though you lose the feeling of claustrophobia such level features create.

In other words, there are pro's and con's.

Diablo 3's combat feels smoother, I think, for three reasons:
1) Cut combat animations
Many combat animations (weapon swings, attacks, spells) don't naturally blend from the idle/run animations. They deliberately *cut* to a keyframe in a dramatic pose, which then flows into the rest of the attack. Path of Exile's combat animations transition smoothly from idle to attack to idle.

2) Skipping utility animations
Some animations only play if the player is standing still. For example, casting buffs or curses. If the player is running or attack at the time, the spell goes off with NO animation at all. It doesn't interrupt the existing combat. In contrast, in Path of Exile, you have to stop moving and wait while you Enduring Cry/Curse/etc.

3) Input queuing
Diablo 3 has a deceptively clever input queuing system. Suppose you are spamming right-click a lot to keep doing one action, then press a key to do another, then go back to spamming right-click. You can't just queue every key-press, otherwise you'd be stuck performing the right-click action a million times. But even if that solitary key-press was made at a "bad time" i.e. during another action (at a time when you couldn't immediately do anything new) you do want to queue up this new action once before going back the spam. In Path of Exile, this extra action frequently gets lost in the spam, making you feel like the skill didn't work for some reason.

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qwave wrote:

SkyCore, I have continually adapted the system in order to meet the needs of Rhys_GGG.

Ultimately, if Grinding Gear Games identifies flaws, I am going to compromise or come up with new solutions. This is how software evolves. And this is how problems like desync get fixed.

At this stage, Rhys_GGG and I are disputing amongst an extremely small subset of remaining issues. If these issues are tied up, then the proposal has become feasible and their team can discuss whether it's within the budget.

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Daefecator wrote:

It is actually very amusing encountering these "predicting" mistakes eventually leading to desyncs. I am regularly playing with my brother, and we are actively communicating via Skype while playing. We both use /oos macro at about every 6-10 seconds.

It is just freaking amazing, that 90+% of the time we both see the exact same game state before using /oos macro - let's say mob is in front of us, but after /oos it appears to be behind us.

It is really rare when one of us actually sees the other desync'ed. I can actually recall yesterday's event, when we were farming ledge merciless and I was using Weapon Throw and was unable to damage anyone (despite having Resolute Technique). After using /oos I saw i was hitting wall all the time, but my brother saw me hitting the wall for all that time already.
The other case was when he saw he was at least half a screen away from Volatile Stormblood but got hit nevertheless, but I saw he was actually in range all the time.

This makes me think that "Client Prediction" (if we call it like that) is very similar for all clients (like me and my brother both playing), but at the same time it looks like it completely differs from "Server Prediction"!

TLDR: Doesn't the root of the D problem lie in that client predicts game state in a totally different way that server does?

How comes we both see boss is here, but loot drops somewhere else? Couldn't it be because of some bug fix applied to server code somehow just didn't make it to the client code, or vice versa?